In recent years, several possibilities have become known for supporting skis by an apparatus mounted on a wall or a frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,797 to Egan discloses a ski rack utilizing pairs of pivotally mounted blocks on a rail to capture a ski. The design takes advantage of the widening of the ski towards its tip to wedge the ski downward against the blocks. Each unit, however, holds only one ski and the blocks must be individually adjusted for each different ski. Once an adjustment is made, only one size ski may be used in the slot.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,298 to Ursetta discloses a holder for skis wherein a support plate holds two rotatable rollers arranged next to each other. The axis of rotation of each roller is eccentric to the center axis of the roller. A circular arc-shaped recess is cut into each roller. Compression springs are placed in each recess. The compression springs have the purpose to rotate the two rollers relative to each other. The rollers, which are covered with rubber linings, cooperate to clamp the skis therebetween. Unfortunately, however, the Ursetta device suffers from a number of drawbacks. The device is of very complicated construction and is not very practical. Further, the rollers are pressed on as a result of the force applied by the above-described springs. If the skis are to be placed in the holder, the two rollers must be rotated to such an extent that a sufficiently wide gap is created between the rollers so that the skis can be placed between the rollers. Moreover, since each of the two rollers is supported and spring-loaded individually, two hands are necessarily required for rotating the rollers themselves. Therefore, another person is needed in order to place the skis in the open gap between the rollers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,183,164 to Heinzle describes a somewhat similar device which has two clamping jaws arranged next to each other. These jaws are eccentrically pivoted to close tighter as the skis are lowered between the jaws. The two jaws are interconnected by a linkage which keeps them rotating symmetrically so as to assure that the pinching forces directly oppose each other. The Heinzle mechanism depends on a high-friction material covering the jaws to keep the smooth skis from slipping between them. This requires laminating two dissimilar materials together, which, as Heinzle discloses, can be a significant problem.
In general, known apparatus and methods suffer from a number of structural and functional disadvantages. It is accordingly a general object of the present invention to provide apparatus and methods for statically suspending a pair of skis or the like which overcome the disadvantages of heretofore known devices and methods. More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a device mounted on a wall or rack or similar support surface for statically suspending a pair of skis oriented in a bottom-to-bottom relationship which is very effective, yet simple to produce and manipulate, and a method for supporting or suspending a pair of skis which is simple to accomplish.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide apparatus and methods for suspending a pair of skis or the like when the skis are positioned in a bottom-to-bottom relationship which eliminates the need for providing means proximate the tails of the skis to prevent the tails from spreading.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide apparatus and methods for statically suspending a pair of skis or the like by the outward arching tips of the skis when the skis are positioned in a bottom-to-bottom relationship.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide apparatus and methods for suspending a pair of skis or the like which is able to accommodate a wide variety of ski shapes and sizes, is adaptable to a wide variety of mounting locations, and is safe to both the user and the equipment being suspended.